PROPOSED jail sentences and fines for parents who fail to en-sure their children attend school have come under fire from Cheshire County Council.

PROPOSED jail sentences and fines for parents who fail to en-sure their children attend school have come under fire from Cheshire County Council.

The Government is warning that a lack of education would not be the only cost of skipping school if parking-ticket-style on-the-spot fines for parents of persistent truants are given the green light.

Police, the education authority and headteachers would each have the opportunity to impose fines of &#xA3;25, doubling if parents do not think the absence was authorised and rising to &#xA3;100 if the payment is late.

The Home Office and the Department for Education and Skills say families who take children on holiday in school time could face fines.

Persistent truancy could even result in parents going to jail.

But Cheshire County Council's executive member for education, Cllr David Rowlands, believes the introduction of fines could jeopardise the relationship between those having to enforce the penalties and parents.

'Cheshire education succeeds when the partnership between schools, parents and the education authority is working best,' said Cllr Rowlands. 'Too often the families of the truant children are on income support, struggling as it is.

'The Government would be taking away on one hand the money that is given on the other.'

Nationally, 48,000 children were approached by truancy officers in the last 18 months. Of these, 16,000 were judged to be truants.

But figures revealed last month by the Department for Education and Skills show Cheshire pupils attend school more regularly than any of their peers in all but one of the country's larger authorities.

Cheshire - population 670,000, with 349 schools - is just 0.8% behind the City of London, which serves a population of just 7,186. And of the large authorities, only North Yorkshire with 372 schools beats Cheshire's total - by just 0.1%.

Cheshire's Director of Education and Community, David Cracknell, stressed that improving attendance was one of the priorities of the county's Education Development Plan.

He said: 'Teachers have been working with parents, school support staff and mentors to follow up absences as soon as possible.

'Our education welfare officers adopt a proactive role in supporting schools to improve attendance and work with schools on a number of programmes to improve attendance and behaviour.

'Cheshire schools are piloting a number of computer-based attendance recording systems that can be monitored by education welfare officers.'

Cllr Rowlands added: 'There is already provision, should that be necessary, to take people through the courts and this gives people the chance to explain themselves.'